


With The Lights Left Off

by Suspicious_Popsicle



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Universe, M/M, set immediately after the Omnic Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 14:38:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15415176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suspicious_Popsicle/pseuds/Suspicious_Popsicle
Summary: The darkness is palpable and it's the only thing holding the moment together. Without it, the bubble bursts, the dream dissolves, they're back in the war and Gabriel can still smell the smoke and the blood, they didn't even shower before collapsing onto the bed, but Jack is so warm and willing and if it's really all nothing but a dream, Gabriel wants all of it that he can get before the nightmare floods back in.





	With The Lights Left Off

**Author's Note:**

> a rambly thing set right at the very, very end of the Crisis and the very, very beginning of Jack & Gabe's romantic relationship.
> 
> all righty, this should be the last thing i drag over from my tumblr for a bit. =) you can look me up at [allofthisnonsenseplease](http://allofthisnonsenseplease.tumblr.com/), if you'd like, for the bits and pieces over there.
> 
> also, thank you again to those who have left such nice comments on the other things i've posted. =) i really appreciate it. <3

Jack drops his bag just inside the door to their hotel room and shuffles inside. He pays no mind as Gabriel kicks his gear aside into the closet before following. It's a standard hotel room, nothing fancy, a cramped bathroom, a TV, a single, king-size bed. Neither of them has said a word since the lobby.

The hotel doesn't feel real. The clean sheets and inviting bed don't feel real. For so long, their only reality has been the war, going and going and going in one long nightmare until the entire world was the color of char and oily smoke, until the stench of death and dirt and munitions worked itself down beneath their skin and numbed their sense of smell. They've long since gone past any regular person's limit of endurance, and kept pushing even further after that, charging forward, taking down omnics, rescuing civilians when they could, mostly mopping up after the initial slaughter, finding sleep where they could in makeshift foxholes or bunkers, or sometimes catching a few fitful hours on a plane to their next destination. They've been on the move for so long—hopping time zones, crossing and recrossing the International Date Line—that time itself has lost meaning. There's only the war, _has_ only been the war, _will_ only be the war....

Except...now word has come down that it's over, that the final shot in humanity's war for survival was fired by Ana half a world away. They've been called in by the UN, given a hotel room, and told to rest up and be ready for a meeting in the morning. Rumor is that Overwatch is going to be made into a permanent peacekeeping force.

The air conditioning kicks on, making them jump. They're still waiting for gunfire, for the swift and brutal attacks that the omnics became known for. The silence is deafening, filled with alarming potential. Gabriel wonders if it will last.

Jack's bark of laughter startles him. The sound is sharp-edged, as unreal as everything else has been since getting the news. He throws himself backward onto the bed, grinning like a madman.

“Has it hit you yet?” he asks. “Really hit you? All this, it.... It feels....”

“Feels like a dream?”

He's able to smile suddenly, and it's not so much a delayed reaction since the news hasn't quite sunk in yet, but more an easing of tension. Jack is here, sprawled out on a hotel bed like a kid, eyes shining with borrowed energy. They're both so far past exhausted that they can't even feel how tired they are anymore. Gabriel stows his bag with Jack's, walks calmly to the bed, and then dives, belly-flopping down and causing the whole thing to shake and Jack to burst once more into staccato laughter. He sounds like a car backfiring, and Gabriel strikes in a fit of fondness coupled with the relief that he's still _there_ , that they both survived, reaching out to catch Jack in a headlock and ruffle his hair.

Jack shoves him away, hair askew, grin crooked and oh-so-bright. He scrambles across the bed and snatches a pillow out of the flock mounded against the headboard, slapping it down between them.

“We've actually got a bed big enough for both of us, so you can stay on _your side_ ,” he taunts, grabbing more pillows and slinging them down in a row.

Gabriel only laughs at him until Jack dares to reach across and begin stealing from the other half of the pillows to build his wall.

“Use your own damn pillows, you thief!”

“There's plenty! How many do you _need_? Hey!” He squawks as Gabriel begins yanking pillows off his wall, and when he lunges to snatch them back, he's met with a pillow to the face.

A scuffle breaks out, and they wrestle each other across the bed, grinning and laughing, rucking up the neatly-made sheets and causing the frame to creak in warning. Jack is keyed up and eager to win, and Gabriel simply doesn't have much fight in him between the laughter and the bone-deep weariness. It ends as quickly as it started when Jack pins him, flattening his body down over Gabriel's to hold him against the mattress. He's grinning and breathing hard, body rocking against Gabriel's, and his slow realization is _visible_ , it's clear as day in the way his grin gentles and the look in his eyes pierces straight to Gabriel's heart.

There's something left unresolved between them, and, for a moment, Gabriel thinks that Jack is about to lower his head and press their lips together, cross a line into something new, something that Gabriel can't predict, something they've been carefully not speaking about for months.

And, in that moment, Gabriel _wants_ him to, wants it more than anything, consequences be damned.

* * *

 

Jack had been half out of his mind when he'd confessed, full of painkillers that made the wounds he'd taken seem far less dangerous than they actually were. And Gabriel...Gabriel was his commanding officer for chrissake, the man who trusted Jack to be focused and dependable on missions, not distracted by minutiae, by unimportant details that had no bearing on victory or defeat.

Gabriel had waited until Jack was lucid again, then asked him, quietly, if he'd been serious. And when Jack had steeled his nerve, looked him in the eye, said, simply: “Yes,” admitted it _again_ , Gabriel had simply taken his hand and given it a squeeze.

“We'll talk later,” he'd said. “After we win this war.” And his eyes had been so warm and so sad, and his lips, still gritty from the battlefield, had turned up at the corners in an expression so bittersweet that Jack had been certain _,_ then and there, without a doubt that, whatever it was Gabriel felt for him, it wasn't the same as his own feelings. He'd done his best to smile, and he'd laid his head back and closed his eyes and he'd wished there was something for this new pain in his heart because he knew he was going to be living in close quarters with it for a long time.

And now here he is again, this time reeling from lack of sleep, nose-to-nose with Gabriel who looks equally gone and almost as if he's thinking the same things about how close their lips are, how humid the tickle of their mixed breath feels, how easy it would be to close that last inch....

“Go turn out the lights,” Gabriel murmurs.

The rumble of his voice so low and close sends a shiver down Jack's spine. It doesn't _feel_ like a no, but maybe that's all in Jack's head, just his hopes running away with him. He rolls off Gabriel and gets off the bed. From the corner of his eye, he sees Gabriel strip off his shirt, and his heart, already racing, beats even faster. The darkness that floods the room as he flicks the switch is punctuated by the grating sound of a zipper and the rustle of thick fabric and _of course_ Gabriel wouldn't be sleeping in his pants, not when they've got a comfortable bed for the first time in what feels like forever, but it's just the one bed and Jack's head is spinning already. None of this is fair.

He feels clumsy as he sheds his own clothes on his way back to the bed, stumbling as he tries to walk and pull his pants off at the same time. He tells himself to calm down, tells himself this is no different from a thousand nights before when they've slept side by side between battles, or sat up keeping watch as the other got some rest. He tells himself that Gabriel doesn't want him that way and that it's all right, that what they have is enough to satisfy him, and that wishing for anything more is mere greediness. It's a familiar litany, and he almost feels like he believes it as his outstretched hands hit the bed and slide over the covers.

He's barely lifted a leg to climb on when Gabriel's hands find him in the dark, latching onto his wrists and pulling him up and across the bed, skating over his skin as he's drawn back in. His legs tangle with Gabriel's as one arm loops around his back, and another races over his shoulder, up his neck, to the back of his head and guides him down until Gabriel finds his lips in the dark. Jack can barely think, can't believe this is happening because he's wanted it for so long—for so goddamn long—and now, here, _finally_ , he's in Gabriel's arms, surrounded by his warmth and his scent, tasting him heavy on his tongue, and the war is over and the bed is soft and Jack is almost certain that he's died and this is heaven.

_Does it count if we can't see each other?_ Maybe that's why Gabriel did it. Nervousness bubbles up out of Jack as muffled laughter, and he tilts his chin, hoping to hide it in the deepening of the kiss. Every movement is jittery with nerves and flagging energy, and sensations storm him, as myriad and hard to grasp as a rain of confetti. Gabriel's lips are chapped, softening slowly beneath his own. His beard tickles and catches on Jack's stubble. His fingers dig into Jack's skin, kneading, rough and reassuring as he holds Jack in place and moves beneath him, rocking his body up against Jack's, and groaning softly into the kiss. The feel of him, the heat flaring up between them, makes Jack's eyes roll up in his head. He grinds against Gabriel, tangles one hand in his hair, cups his face with the other, thumbing over the scars on his cheekbone.

The kiss goes on and on, filling Jack with something molten and needy that churns within him, even as the warmth and gentle, rhythmic rocking lulls him closer and closer to sleep. Jack tries to fight the creeping drowsiness, hating to lose even a minute no matter the reason, but it's a losing battle. The roll of his hips against Gabriel's slows. His grip on Gabriel's hair slackens, and the moments between their kisses stretch longer and longer, filling with quiet sighs and soft pecks that are little more than the pursing of lips. He shifts, and they roll onto their sides. One of Gabriel's legs slips between his as Gabriel pulls him close, holding him so very carefully as if he might shatter. They lay in each other's arms, pressing lips to skin, nuzzling closer, and Jack thinks fuzzily that he can pretend that it's real, that the war is definitely over, that they're actually safe. He thinks that Gabriel loves him after all, and he falls asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

 

The first kiss is electric and terrifying and Gabriel knows he's lost even as Jack practically melts against him. He's been dreaming about this for months, ever since Jack confessed to him after an emergency evac. He tells himself that if it hadn't been for the war, he'd have kissed Jack then, given him an answer rather than an evasion, but he isn't sure that's true. He wants this, yes, and clings to Jack as he deepens the kiss...but he's also afraid of changing something that had been solid, been the core of his existence through a goddamn war for the survival of humanity.

But, God, Jack—stupid, wonderful, thoughtless, brilliant Jack—had been right there on top of him, wearing his heart on his sleeve and Gabriel hadn't been able to push him away, had only been able to delay, to seize a moment's timeout and see if it would be enough to keep reason in control.

It hadn't been.

Jet lagged and aching and left purposeless by a victory that wasn't even real to him yet, need had taken over and he'd pulled Jack to him and thank God Jack hadn't asked any questions because Gabriel has no idea what to say.

The darkness is palpable and it's the only thing holding the moment together. Without it, the bubble bursts, the dream dissolves, they're back in the war and Gabriel can still smell the smoke and the blood, they didn't even shower before collapsing onto the bed, but Jack is so warm and willing and if it's really all nothing but a dream, Gabriel wants all of it that he can get before the nightmare floods back in.

They can talk about it later, figure out what it means for them, decide if it's a mistake after all, or a risk worth taking. They can talk about all of that later, when they aren't dead tired and just needing something familiar and safe to hold on to, when sloppy kisses and the warm, living weight of Jack's body on top of his isn't the most precious comfort he could have. There will be time enough to talk about it tomorrow.

He promises himself that knowing that there won't be, and, sure enough, there isn't. In the morning, Gabriel wakes before Jack and carefully untangles himself. He retreats into the bathroom, says nothing about what happened when he emerges to find that Jack is awake and awaiting his own turn, avoids Jack's eyes until they're safely away from the hotel and being ushered into a meeting room at the UN building with Ana, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, and other familiar faces.

It's revealed to them that Overwatch is being made an official peacekeeping force under direct supervision of the UN, and the rest of the day is taken up with endless talking: introductions, debriefings, questions with answers ranging from frustratingly inadequate to mind-numbingly long-winded.

By the time the meeting is over, Gabriel wants nothing more than to return to the hotel room and, although Jack looks like he wants to catch up with their friends, he makes his excuses and follows Gabriel. He's almost certainly expecting that they'll talk about what happened last night, but Gabriel's head is pounding and all he wants to do is curl up in pitch darkness and sleep. Jack turns on the lights as they walk into their room, and Gabriel flicks them back off immediately, ignoring the quiet sigh, and trying not to think about Jack looking disappointed. It always makes him look so heartbreakingly lost, and Gabriel can't take that right now, not with a migraine nailing spikes through his brain, not with his stomach knotting up in anxiety over what he did last night and exactly how wrong it could all go.

He stands just in front of the door and strips down to his boxers, listening to Jack do the same nearer the bed. The room is beautifully, perfectly pitch black, and Gabriel shuffles forward, hands outstretched, when he's ready to lay down. It's a mistake. His hands find Jack before he finds the bed, and they slide over Jack's skin like they were made just for that purpose, tracing over the contours of muscle and bone, sampling the textures of hair and scars, absorbing his warmth. His hands slip around Jack's waist as if they have a mind of their own, and his arms follow, catching Jack up in a loose embrace as Gabriel bears him down onto the freshly-made bed.

It's easy in the darkness, almost reflexive. They fit themselves together as they crawl across the sheets and settle comfortably in the middle of the bed, kissing long and slow and sweet, Jack is cradling his head, fingers kneading behind Gabriel's ears, at the base of his skull, along his neck. He makes agreeable, pleading noises beneath Gabriel, arching his body in a sinuous roll from hips to chest, a soft grind that adds a pleasant friction and makes Gabriel shiver. Jack is warm and willing and eager, but not pushing, not yet, not asking anything that Gabriel isn't already offering him. That won't last. He'll want to know why they didn't talk about it. He deserves to know where this is taking them. Jack will have to be the one that brings it up, though. Gabriel still doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to explain to Jack why this makes him so afraid when he wants just as badly.

Here in the sheltering darkness, he can reach out for Jack, pull him close, revel in his kisses, burn beneath his touch. He can let himself need Jack this way, when everything is locked away unseen. He surrounds himself with Jack, with his warmth and scent and sound, buries his face in the crook of Jack's neck and breathes deeply, nuzzles his skin, bites down and thrills at the way Jack gasps and bucks against him. Jack is at the center of everything. He's the one person in the world that Gabriel has come to regard as backup, as safety, as _home_. He's the most solid, certain thing in Gabriel's life, and, as much as Gabriel wants to be with him in every sense, the thought of adding sex to the mix feels a bit like setting off fireworks at a gas station. They've come to depend so heavily on one another. This--if this should ever go bad--could ruin that. They're stronger together by far than they are apart, but they're also both headstrong, passionate, prone to fighting. Becoming lovers won't change that. Gabriel wouldn't _want_ to change it. He loves Jack for who he is, loves every stupid, impulsive, stubborn bit of him because all of that feeds in to what makes Jack _Jack_.

Improvise and hope for the best is Jack's style. Gabriel likes having a plan, but he hasn't planned for this, is pretty sure this is the kind of thing he _can't_ plan with any sort of accuracy, especially not with all the changes coming for them as part of the new Overwatch.

He should take a page from Jack's book on this one, make the leap and run with it, rather than hiding behind darkness and silence. He kisses Jack as he grinds against him, and feels like a coward. He isn't ready for this—should never have started it in the first place—but Jack is kissing him like the world is ending, and his hands, rough and callused and entirely wonderful, are tugging at the waistband of Gabriel's boxers, and he's weak, so weak, as he lifts his hips to create space between them and invite Jack to touch.

His thoughts become less solid, his worries lose their form. The dark what-ifs that have been haunting him dissolve into the thicker blackness of the air as his breath comes harsher and Jack's hands draw him out, barely hard and desperate for touch. He sucks bruises into Jack's neck, props his weight on one forearm and slips a hand between them, trails his fingers down Jack's stomach and moves lower until he's stroking him through his boxers, clumsily, fumblingly, getting in the way of Jack's strokes until he can't tell if Jack is laughing or gasping in the midst of everything.

Finally, Jack rolls them onto their sides. He takes Gabriel's hand in his, guides his touch around their erections, sets a rhythm to their strokes, long and firm and he shudders and curls closer as Gabriel twists his wrist on the upstroke. He tucks his head in, mouthing wet kisses against Gabriel's collarbone. He's shaking faintly, and Gabriel wants to hold him, but his hands are occupied, fingers slick with sweat and precome and they both need this release. He kisses the top of Jack's head, instead, hunches his shoulders and leans into him. Jack's name is on the tip of his tongue, but it never quite falls from his lips. He strokes faster, hands shaking and slipping, feeling Jack's thighs tense and tremble, hearing his panting breaths take on a keening edge.

Jack finishes first, and he moans as they keep stroking, fingers laced together, until Gabriel comes with a groan and sags into the mattress. They lay still for a long time, catching their breath. Jack's foot strokes lazily against Gabriel's ankle. He notices that his headache is gone. The room feels expansive around them, far too much open space, and cooler than he likes, but Jack is radiating warmth, and Gabriel presses in closer, knuckles idly stroking Jack's stomach. The scent of Jack's sweat and skin is still tainted with the reek of war, but now it's mixed with the odor of sex, and Gabriel finds the combination intoxicating. Heedless of the mess on his fingers, he slips an arm over Jack's side and rubs his hand up and down his back. Jack hums for him, slips his thigh up between Gabriel's, murmurs: “We ought to get cleaned up,” and doesn't move.

Eventually, Gabriel finds the willpower to get up. They've slept in worse messes, but only out of necessity. Jack groans discontentedly, but lets him go rather than follow, and Gabriel wonders if he's a little bit afraid of changing what they are to each other, as well. Maybe neither of them is ready to shine a light on it and see the potential—good or bad—it holds for them.

He shuffles to the bathroom in the dark, and makes sure to shut the door before turning the light on. In the mirror, he looks himself straight in the eye and wonders what he's going to do about this, if it's only stringing Jack along, if it isn't, if he'll be ready to talk about it soon, if it's going to be a problem that he's Jack's CO, if it will make them a liability in the field. He stares himself down and asks himself these questions beneath the bright, florescent lights, then cleans up quickly, more eager than he wants to admit to return to the dreamlike darkness.

* * *

 

The days repeat the same pattern over and over again for a week. The nights are a recurring dream. In their hotel room, there is darkness, mingled breaths as they learn each other by touch, heat and excitement and release and a longing like shrapnel in Jack's heart. In the light of day, they don't talk about it. At the meetings, they are professional. They are soldiers, comrades, friends, but not lovers. Nothing so messy.

Jack isn't entirely sure what Gabriel is afraid of, but he knows well enough that, for his own part, he's afraid to be the one that pushes and ruins whatever it is that they have now. He wonders if it was only about comfort at first, just Gabriel needing a warm body to ground him against the sudden loss of equilibrium that came with the end of the war. No more fighting? No more racing around the world from hot spot to hot spot, risking their lives and seeing firsthand how many they were too late to save? Jack's head had been reeling from the news, too, that first day, but this whole thing with Gabriel has him spinning in circles for an entirely different reason.

He doesn't like not knowing where they stand, doesn't like having to hide how he feels because Gabriel is acting as if nothing has changed. He doesn't like the situation they've found themselves in when the lights are on, but he's too much in love with Gabriel to say no when the lights go out, too full of hope that Gabriel will tell him what it means that he only reaches out under cover of darkness.

For now, Jack plays along, accepting anything Gabriel will give him. They hold each other through bad dreams, kiss away the nightmares, ease tensions with wandering hands. The words they share are quiet, meaningless reassurances meant only to soothe away the terrors of memory that escape in sleep. They fade, along with the most visceral of the nightmares, with the breaking of day and the intrusion of bigger, more important matters to focus their thoughts upon.

Jack thinks Gabriel is just as important as any of it.

He calls himself a coward for not making that clear. When he takes his turn cleaning up before they sleep, he avoids looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, not wanting to see the way he looks after Gabriel has finished loving him, not wanting to see hope and loneliness mixed in his eyes. Gabriel has his reasons. Jack can give him space, be what he needs. He can wait.

It becomes habit, leaving the lights off when they return to the hotel, finding each other in the darkness and collapsing together onto the bed. Jack gets used to it so quickly that when they return one night and Gabriel flicks the switch, letting light invade the space they made to hold each other, Jack is turning to cut the lights back off without thinking about it. Gabriel stops him, catches his hand and holds it for a beat before raising it to his lips and kissing Jack's knuckles.

“I want to see you.” He whispers the words against Jack's skin, looks up from beneath his lashes as if uncertain what response to expect. As if Jack would deny him anything.

It's another start, another beginning, just like that first kiss. Jack accepts it eagerly, backing him up against the door and catching his lips in a kiss that spills giddy, relieved laughter out around the edges. They can move forward at Gabriel's pace. He's fine taking things slow.

As long as they're together, Jack has what he wants.

 


End file.
